Sunday Samplers are a “lightning round” of different subjects, none of which really warrant a full post, that have popped into my head over the course of the past week. They may or may not be regular weekly posts.
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There’s something about casinos that I find fascinating, even though I don’t care for gambling all that much.
No matter what theme or decor choice they make, there are certain things that every casino I’ve been to has the same elements: no windows (except for doors), deliberately looping & dizzying patterns, no clocks, and no places to chill that aren’t connected to a game in some way. But instead of it feeling manipulative, it’s actually kind of… fun. Even if you aren’t playing, you’re just walking around looking at everything, taking in the atmosphere & appreciating the details that make each unique.
And I’ll say this for the games, especially slots - they’re trying to feel more like actual games and not just money vacuums. They’re still money vacuums at the end of the day, but at least now they’ll have some interactive elements or animations that make them feel a little more substantial. There are some that have artwork that doesn’t skirt up against the “is it AI or is it just ugly” barrier, but they almost all have huge screens to show everyone the fun minigames & attract more players. They’ll never be as fun as an actual arcade game or pinball table to me, but hey, they’re trying.
(Unfortunately, due to casinos generally frowning on it for a bunch of reasons, I couldn’t take any pictures to better illustrate these point.)
They’re not my first choice for a thing to do on a day off, unlike with my family. It’s one of those places where the options of “ways to spend time at this location” are a little too limited for my liking, with the shopping & eating options usually being way out of my sphere. I’d rather go somewhere a bit more entertaining, a bit more affordable, and if it’s nice out, a bit more… outdoors. But there’s still interesting elements there that I can find interesting enough to not be bored.
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~Cuidado, cuidado, cuidado, cuidado, hay llamas…~
If you listen closely, you can hear it shouting “NERRRRRRD!” at me for that opening line.
Wait, wait, false alarm. It’s just an alpaca with its hair slicked back.
Cat rump included free of charge!
So… yeah, I’m enjoying this year’s advent calendar.
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Lightning-squared round! Cuz… I’m already running out of faux-witty justifications for this section. Not gonna stop me from doing it, though.
I don’t like this whole “parents of my peers & friends keep dying” phase of life one single bit.
Man, once I’m done with this Woobles advent calendar, I’m gonna have a treasure trove of 4.0mm crochet hooks & tapestry needles.
Since Toei is replacing Super Sentai with a reboot of Space Sheriff Gavan and trying to make the character the “center” of a new continuity, may I humbly suggest bringing back some of the magical girls from the Fushigi Comedy series? They deserve more than just a one-off cameo in a Kamen Rider movie & trivia mentions when talking about Codename: Sailor V.
Especially Ipanema, that poor girl had it ROUGH. (Pic from the Tokusatsu Wiki.)
Oh, Crunchyroll is ending their free ad-supported streaming and forcing subscriptions? At the same time that they’re getting near-universal hate for using AI subs & even using it for dubbed voices? AND there are rumors circulating that they’re gonna assimilate HiDive like they did with Funimation? Damn, I was looking forward to Restart and/or the new Precure season, but I guess it’s back to enjoying anime from a distance. Or via less safe but more accessible means.
She might not be in Restart, but her time has come!
Welcome Home also updated! This update focuses on Frank, a character who’s become one of my favorites, and starts to get more into the proverbial weeds of the story. Keep an eye out for his bugs… but don’t try to bring them home…
It’s lonely being the only person into animation who isn’t completely & absolutely enamored with Glitch Studios & their shows. They’re a step above Rooster Teeth, but that’s a bar so low Satan keeps tripping on it. And their biggest shows garnering a very particular kind of hyper-online audience isn’t gonna change that mild distaste into anything better anytime soon.
Uma update! Well, not really, but related to my casino ramble above, I can’t help but wonder if any of the Pennsylvania casinos with race tracks have considered doing a promotion based on the game. Cuz let’s be honest, there’s probably plenty of people who’ve come up with an Uma design for Smarty Jones, and holding a contest for them could bring them into the casino...
I’m normally not a South Park watcher, but after the past couple of weeks of trying to get approval to continue taking a medication that I need & that I have been on for literally years & will continue to need for basic health maintenance, this is EXTREMELY relatable.
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This week’s picture: a look at my average WFH lunch break.
The Hoagie Wanters have arrived.
Wishing everyone who celebrates a Happy Hanukkah this coming week, and see you all next time!
Sunday Samplers are a “lightning round” of different subjects, none of which really warrant a full post, that have popped into my head over the course of the past week. They may or may not be regular weekly posts.
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Hey! Hey! Who wants to see a steaming pile of bullshit?
I hate fandom. I truly, truly do. And sorry, Wednes3day, there is ZERO difference between fandom and the odious origins/behavior of standom at this point.
Are there things I’m a fan of and vocally enjoy? Yes. I’d argue everyone has at least one athlete or music act or TV show or author that they’ll always take joy in engaging with and want to share why they find value in that thing. But modern fandom isn’t about “community” or “connection” or whatever flimsy excuse they’re using. Modern fandom is a damn CULT.
I really wish actual trained psychologists or anthropologists would look at the modern fandom scene. I say this as someone who has grown up watching a branch of my family being ultra-fundamentalist, they are frequently indistinguishable from them except in the object of their devotion. Notably:
Criticism of the subject is treated as criticism of both the individual & of the world at large.
Creators/performers are seen as flawless leader figures to be obeyed & defended absolutely, not unlike a spiritual leader. Also not unlike some spiritual leaders, there are plenty of creators/performers who will exploit this, to better forge that connection, for their own benefits.
There’s a push towards constant evangelism of the subject/faith and converting new followers, and any attempts to rebuff these efforts are met with hostility.
If someone doesn’t belong to your particular fandom/church, it absolutely MUST be a sign of moral failure on their part.
Basically, it’s taking the absolutist mindset of a religious zealot towards their faith as the sole defining thing in their life, as opposed to just part of a wider personality tapestry, and applying it to things that are FAR less substantial. And I’d love for people more knowledgeable than me to get into the weeds of this. Is correlation equaling causation, and is there truly an Exvangelical-to-standom pipeline? How much does social media eroding the proverbial wall between creator & audience factor into this shift? Does the general slide into what I can only describe as “entitled rudeness” post-lockdown play a role as well? And the trend towards self-diagnosis of mental illness and/or neurodivergent conditions, is that a factor? There’s a lot I wanna ask and have someone with the actual smarts & professional distance from any kind of fandom experience answer.
Problem is, people still see “fandom” as a concept as a frivolous thing, which is what it SHOULD be. It should be no different than any other hobby, something you do that you enjoy, that you might opt to share with others, and something that isn’t as prioritized as, say, work or family or things that you actually have a stake in affecting in life. And in some spheres, that’s still the case; people who would rather spring for Disney season passes or season tickets for their favorite NFL team than pay their utilities or mortgages or keep their jobs (real examples, btw) still get viewed by people in everyday offline life as they should be, having a deeply broken sense of priorities. But for more online-based fandoms, that’s considered normal for some reason. Hell, that’s just the tip of the unhealthy behavior.
Maybe it’s cuz I grew up in the era of several high profile “fans gone too far” stories, from the guy who wanted to disfigure Bjork to the woman who killed Selena, that I tend to be extremely wary of what fandom has become. We get people routinely doxxing music reporters for giving their favorite’s latest album a mediocre review or harassing authors until they’re forced to out themselves. We get people in charge of the fandom subject weaponizing this mania to bolster themselves while portraying anyone who even mildly questions them as akin to terrorists or hate groups. We’ve seen examples of fans souring on the object of their obsession and turning on it violently, and the internet, as a collective, shrugged. They made excuses. They tried to portray it as solely stuff done by people that they already hated, be it for good reason or otherwise, only to turn around & do the exact same awful things with the flimsiest justifications.
So yeah, if anything, “fandom” should be the term that falls out of usage. It’s not strong enough anymore. The norm has become the stan, the guy driven to madness & murder because he’s too far gone and has nothing in his life except for the content he has slavishly consumed like a mindless hog. The term hasn’t been softened, no matter what Zoomers might try to claim. The “fringe” it described had simply molded & spread to become the norm, and they’re incapable of reflecting on that. It would mean questioning their world more than they’d be able to handle.
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Lightning-squared round! Cuz this is the best option compared to returning to social media aside from actual withdrawal symptoms..
PCL updated again! Labor laws! Overexpansion beyond your business’s original area of expertise! Toxic mascot yuri! Puzzles I’m too dim to decode! Lovely art! And the worst "pollinator mix” of garden seeds I’ve seen since the one I bought this past spring! Also, while they archived the short stories hidden in the Halloween update, I’m not sure that they did the same for the trick-or-treaters around the site (or I just couldn’t find them), and I hope they did.
Apparently there was a legit complaint about that British knitting reality competition show regarding them not paying the designers for their patterns being used in tie-in kits promoting the show. So that’s a real reason to be pissed with the show. And since they’ve stated that all rights & profits to the patterns will revert to the shows’ contestant designers once airing is done, it sounds like it’s been remedied.
It sucks that the thing I have the biggest urge to write isn’t the next in-continuity part of the Phantom Violet story but rather a side story that would also mean breaking my “writing around copyright” rules, and that’s stuff that I don’t want to share publicly, even though I’m not sure why. Original work or no, it’s not like anyone reads my stuff…
There are certain characters (and you can probably guess which ones by now) that, whenever I see someone marginalized “seeing themselves” in them, it gives me the same reaction of “Really? I thought I hated myself, but if THAT’S what makes you ‘feel seen’, you’re definitely worse off mentally” as whenever some ace person says they “feel seen” by an emotionless, inhuman, and/or amoral character. I wanna believe that they’re not possibly THAT dense & desperate, that they’ll see a character built entirely on insulting their existence & see it as a positive, but that’s giving the modern world too much credit.
Gotta love when I see another reminder that a well-loved YouTuber who was directly an asshole to me (for the curious, see my Ace Week piece & find the link to the old essay I did) has absolute garbage taste in a very specific way, so I can continue ignoring him.
Super Sentai being stopped feels like Toei & TV Asahi have just broken one of the remaining seals that’s holding off the apocalypse. It also makes me wonder if Precure is safe…
What level of depression is it when you find yourself wanting to revisit some old concepts for fan senshi cuz you’re stumped on your original work?
Horse-girl game update: I finally beat the URA Finale! And with the Uma named after my favorite liquor, no less!
Y’know, it shouldn’t bother me that my stats show that absolutely no one followed me here from Bluesky once I gave up on it after the one-two punch of “wanton slides into the worst kind of gooner brain” and “extremely hypocritical & inhumane politics courtesy of Twitch grifters” with a side of "insulting you specifically once you’re barely out of earshot”, but MAN, is it making me extra disgusted with my social situation that such a place was my main socialization outlet for a couple of years. Once I’m not there to cheerlead for others, I’m forgotten. Even when I was actively sharing my stuff there, it was almost entirely ignored. And people wonder why I’m so jaded about everything…
The way that the internet manages to have 90% of its original celebrities turn out to be walking horrorshows of one stripe or another makes the sight of Christmas ornaments based on them darkly hilarious. And that includes ones who haven’t had any issues yet, cuz… c’mon, the odds aren’t really in their favor. Best they’ll get is “who the hell is this” five Christmases down the line.
Honestly, I don’t feel like anything good is gonna come from the Netflix/WB deal, even with the current state of the latter. Netflix is so cagey about how well it’s actually doing beyond “this show/movie is popular” that they come off as… untrustworthy from a business perspective. And given what gets popular with their service, at least online, I fear they’ll monofocus WB’s animation library even more on Adult Swim, which by now you should know I find odious. Also, I wonder if they’ll start to yank rights back from FAST outlets and/or MeTV Toons just to cut out potential “competition” but then let everything they yank back gather dust instead of offering it to stream. I just can’t see any upsides to this deal. As Jeff Harris points out, Netflix is the best option out of three bad ones, especially compared to Skydance. But the best of three bad options is still a bad option.
I’ll see your hatred of factory knots in yarn skeins and raise you “when thread gets caught in the glued part of the label, thus resulting in glue & paper being stuck to a section of yarn that can only be removed upon washing” for sheer frustration.
“GenX was born to suffer. I think they like it.” - some random YT commenter. You’re not wrong, friend…
There's a small account that I really want to support because of their great extremely niche creative work, but they’ve become one of those “AEW are blameless holy creatures and never do anything even slightly wrong” people, and damn does that make it hard. Sorry, I can’t support a company whose boss is a shining example of the standom-cult-leader problems above and whose staff AND fanbase behave in such a manner that I got to experience flashbacks to my shithole college for the first time. And constantly pushing them as the moral & always-original alternative is kinda souring me on their work.
I originally had a video recommendation piece, but I decided that it’s just worth the potential trouble. All I'll say is that others have noticed that the horseshoe theory is correct in regards to one subject in particular, and it’s fucking disgusting.
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Gonna give a quick salute to Larry Talbot Mendez-Brooks. My mom knew almost nothing about wrestling, but she knew about “that cute funny-looking dog”.
Here, we’re getting Larry’s hockey picks.
Rest in peace, you scrappy little house werewolf. Say hi to my dogs for me, especially Herbert.
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Instead of a cat pic this week, I'm using an ad from the Victorian era that I liked. It probably qualifies as a cat pic on a technicality.
I'd happily buy a print of this for my kitchen, if it was available.
Yep, this week is a skip week, mostly just because this is entirely dedicated to doing decorations. At two houses. Along with the usual weekend activities. One of said houses will involve decorating with cats.
This would be one of the better possible scenarios.
So "rest" is kinda relative. See y'all next Sunday with something more substantial.
Sunday Samplers are a “lightning round” of different subjects, none of which really warrant a full post, that have popped into my head over the course of the past week. They may or may not be regular weekly posts.
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I’ve realized that it’s pretty much impossible in the modern world to have a past time that doesn’t become a magnet for ridiculous drama. You’d think having spent many decades in such horrid hot messes as “comics fandom” or “animation fandom” that I’d be inured to it now, but nope, somehow yarnwork - and knitting in particular - has managed to surpass them for sheer pettiness.
Here’s a brief list of things that I have gotten grief from strangers for in my time knitting (I recommend playing the first minute or so of “Tijuana Taxi” under this while reading, starting the list right when the horns begin):
Knitting English style & being unable to learn Continental style without completely borking my tension;
Initially doing the YO increase backwards;
Using acrylic yarns;
Not immediately mastering intarsia/colorwork and instead relying on color blocking;
Using big-name-brand yarns instead of solely buying from small weavers (who are usually out of my price range & put a burden of extra care on the recipient);
Doing multiple projects at once;
Using free patterns from yarn companies;
Using Ravelry, even if just in passing;
Putting crocheted borders on knitted projects or just mixing the two techniques in the same piece; and
Preferring larger flat projects like blankets to garments.
(Feel free to pause/close the Herb Alpert music at this point. Or not. You do you.)
There’s snobbery about yarn type. Snobbery about where it’s bought. Casual racism masked as snobbery. Snobbery about technique or craft. Snobbery about time spent on any given project. A very weird snobbery towards anyone masculine so much as breathing on a knitting needle, let alone making things. People who like to twist discussions of knitting into their preferred newly discovered political philosophy, even historical ones where it doesn’t apply. And not even God can save you if you’re a non-yarnworker who gets something wrong about a niche use of a niche tool in a niche subject, as a vintage cat photo account learned for not recognizing a knitting belt (come to think of it, they eventually spent more online time arguing about veganism than posting cat pics after this incident, so maybe that’s why they purpose-drifted like they did).
I get some of the kneejerk reactions, to a point. There’s a tendency to assume that all yarnworkers, but especially knitters, are docile old grannies who just kinda… wiggle the sticks & make the things. There have been “smart” people who take that assumption and run with it, be it the failed tech startup run by 2 bros who just saw yarnwork as something to “disrupt” or Sci Show’s trademark “quirky” condescension. But this results in two very obnoxious tendencies in defense of knitting: the “knitting is coding & thus STEM & thus has ~real~ value” argument (which carries that STEM-push hatred of anything creative) and the blanket hatred of men in the scene at all. That last one has, unfortunately, led more than a few people down into some TERFy pits.
So when I began seeing reaction videos about a British knitting competition show, I KNEW that it’d be bad. Not just the show, the reactions to it. First off, the show feels like cramming a square peg into a round hole; knitting takes time and doesn’t really lend itself to the same TV-friendly presentation as something like baking or runway couture. There’s been British shows about other slow & meticulous crafts (notably quilting), so maybe they have a formula that works better than I’d expect, but since none of these ever reach the States without a VPN, I wouldn’t know. Second, the host is the Olympic athlete for the UK that did yarnwork between his events, and lemme tell you, knitters online DO NOT like this guy. He doesn’t seem to be a terrible person in any regard, at least from interviews, but they HATE that this MAN is praised for knitting & horning in on WOMEN’S SPACES & stealing from WOMEN’S HISTORY & you’re probably starting to see why some people wind up stumbling into TERFdom if they step wrong. So you’ve got a craft that’s being twisted into a reality show format that probably doesn’t serve it, hosted by a guy who’s anathema to vocal online knitters just for his guy-ness. You can see where this is gonna get messy.
Judging from the reactions, the first episode earned the ire of a society of Scottish fair isle knitters that were upset about discussions about “correct” technique by the designated “nasty & picky” judge. This has resulted in different fair isle societies in different areas taking sides, either agreeing with the show or agreeing with the Scottish group. But the whole thing, if you’re someone with a passing interest in knitting that may have been sparked by the show, looks RIDICULOUS. It’s the most nit-picky, humorless thing I’ve seen since the inevitable return of “Batman should spend more money on social services & stop beating up the mentally ill” discourse in comics circles. They’re calling for protests, boycotts, canceling the show, etc… after one episode. Cuz of standard reality show stuff.
There’s a key difference between the reaction to this & the reaction to Sci-Show. First off, Sci-Show had a history of being dismissive of anything not really in the station runners’ “quirky nerdbro” wheelhouse, and they also had a history of being casually… shitty. From mansplaining to female experts who tried to correct their misinformation to refusing to retract a video full of bad research about HRT, they’re just not receptive to the notion that they got very basic things wrong and aren’t experts in all things. And they got stuff WRONG, from showing crocheted/woven works as examples of knitting to making sure to use only stock footage that fits the “sweet old granny slowly pokes sticks & makes things” image of knitting to never once mentioning that the two scientists who ~finally~ found a ~useful~ scientific application for knitting were women & knitters themselves. The backlash makes sense because the work itself was obviously coming from a place of arrogance & bad faith.
But the British show? Again, I haven’t seen it, but the reactions are somehow more heated than the ones to Sci-Show. I don’t know if it’s because the official clubs lodging complaints aren’t “online” enough to know about that mess or if they’re just some of the more tradwife-y Green Brothers fangirls (and those are sadly plentiful), but they’ve been so over-the-top in their anger that they’ve been giving me second-hand embarrassment. And it seems to come less from a place of “let’s get people to appreciate the traditions & intricacy of knitting” and more from “let’s protect our holy & sacred craft from outsiders”. Maybe THAT’S what is bothering me, that clubhouse mentality. I’ve seen it for decades with other interests that I have (especially comics), so it naturally raises my hackles. But.. there’s more here. There’s that weird hatred of the host, there’s that whole “women’s craft” aspect that keeps skirting uncomfortably close to TERFdom. There’s snobbery about which hand holds the yarn, about other forms of yarn craft, about pretty much everything that’s involved with knitting. It’s a concentrated ball of the stuff that just sucks any sense of joy or relaxation or accomplishment out of doing yarn work at all.
I don’t know if it’s just how things work in the age of the internet, but just once I’d like one of my hobbies to not be saddled with this kind of nonsense. Sadly, I’d be more successful asking Santa to bring me a pet unicorn than seeing that happen.
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Whew… that’s a lot of unexpected talk about TERFs, huh? Here, enjoy one of several entries in my Happy Days crochet blanket kit that I like to call “accidental trans pride squares”.
This is also how I learned of the existence of the “triple treble” stitch, not to be confused with that card game thing in Final Fantasy 8.
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This week’s video recommendation is from Izzzyzzz, looking at why abandoned & putrefying supermarkets (like Mexia) have garnered an online following, complete with gijinkas of the real world sites, and how it reflects a trend towards re-embracing the darker & messier parts of nostalgia.
Let’s all be thankful Smell-O-Vision doesn’t exist when watching any videos about these places…
I feel like there are two things at play that have led to the very specific phenomenon getting an actual fandom (complete with shipping because of course). First, someone in the video comments pointed out that this feels like a logical next step after the fascination with liminal spaces; instead of uncomfortably sterile & still, we have its opposite, filled with rancid clutter & swarms of vermin. Both are distressing, only in extremely different ways. The second is related to what I was saying in my dead mall fascination piece: that strange feeling when something that was treated like an immutable & innate part of life (in this case, the local supermarket) suddenly ceases to exist. Only in this case, you get a visceral element that takes the decay of Dixie Square and adds an entirely new, revolting dimension to it. You don’t expect the local market to just close abruptly one day, and you DEFINITELY don’t expect them to leave everything to rot, yet it’s happening… maybe not as frequently as mall closures but still.
I fully welcome the return of “grimier” nostalgia that Izzzyzzz addresses as well. We’ve had decades of glossy, bright 80s nostalgia that feels inauthentic to anyone who lived through it (for starters, there’s never any cigarette smoke or discoloration, which was omnipresent in the actual time), and the more it appears, the emptier it feels. It’s as corporate and (for lack of a better word) phony as flattened designs or the all-neutrals “clean” look in decor or fashion, and people have gradually grown sick of it. Frankly, it’s about time.
(Also, I can’t stop thinking about that “abandoned for six months” fish market they mentioned. I worked at a supermarket seafood counter, and if stuff went bad overnight, that smell was absolutely sickening. We’d have to check everything & clean the whole case, and even then, I swear the scent hung in your nostrils for hours. Imagining that stretched out for half a year… stomach churning. Just send it all to Hell with fire.)
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Lightning-squared round! Cuz my brain is a pressure cooker that needs constant adjustment vents.
Saw some horrid fandom kid arguing that it's perfectly fine to erase one of the rare canon asexual characters’ orientation cuz “they're not real & thus can't be oppressed”, and now I want to apply that attitude to every other canonically queer character to see if that argument still holds water or if people will recognize it for the passive-aggressive ace hate it actually is. ADDENDUM: Now former moots are doing the whole “it’s not erasure if it’s fictional characters” thing, and MAAAAN, is it any wonder I am both deeply cynical about just how much they actually respect ace people as a whole AND have too many trust issues to consider online friendships “real” anymore?
It sucks when you wanna tell someone that you’re glad they enjoyed a series that you really loved that flew under the radar (or was actively shoved under it by [as]holes, in this case), but the only place online they’re active is Bluesky & you really don’t wanna get involved in that mess again.
This year just HAD to get in another therapist departure on me, didn’t it?
I swear, every time I look in on Fizz-Chan, he's either (a) gloating about one of his bazillion boycotts resulting in job cuts or (b) trying to pretend that the rest of the world shares his irrational hatred of CM Punk. Cuz apparently the wild, shocked, joyous cheering at Punk’s return was supposed to be a negative reaction. Well, maybe if you’re a hashtag-autistic Has*noid, it is, cuz it’s a subconscious reminder of just how detached from the wider world he willingly is. Dude’s lucky he's not on camera, cuz then I wouldn't be the only person comparing him to the internet’s favorite horrorshow.
Then again, farmers seem to be sleeping on his buddy Ant, who IS on camera and has an obvious urge to be seen as an Important Queer Voice™ (while rehashing repetitive/tired topics again & again), right down to constantly vanity searching for people “insulting” him. That's the biggest “let them fight” thing I wanna see.
Pretty sure 30th Street Station won't be able to put up their big tree this year cuz of all the construction, but they could at least string some lights on the scaffolding to perk up the place.
Pretty sure they could replicate the Wanamakers Christmas light show on all this.
More 30th Street Station depressing status updates: the evening lighting is so dim that I half thought there was a power outage, and one of the art pieces in the side hall is covered for repairs after “recent vandalism”. It’s like they’re in a competition with modern Penn Station as to which can make you feel worse about your traveling experience. At least Penn Station has more than 2 places to eat…
The birds seem cool with the pastry-centric food, though.
Every train needs a large man with a spiky cudgel whose sole job is to enforce the quiet car rules, especially from “has loud phone calls on speaker in public” folks.
MFSB had it off, the sound of Philly isn't a cool groove. It's constant relentless car horns.
Every time I see someone who had been established in WWE leaving AEW, my main assumption is usually that they finally got sick of the ridiculous fanbase and went to one that won't compare them to N*zis or dox them/anyone who likes them for not kissing the ass of their comfort company's owner hard enough. And the fact that one of the biggest stars there, one who doesn't incur the wrath of the sickos, has the exact same attitude towards his colleagues who aren't as brand loyal as him only enforces my distaste. Anyway, good for Jericho, cuz now his retirement won't include any creepy youth pastors.
Honestly, as much as I would like to detail WHY so many of the attitudes held by AEW & its fanbase rankle me, I know that would mean sharing my lowest moment with an audience that would not only not care but also think it's fun to set off reminders of it, all cuz they value their comfort brand more than actual human beings.
Today in “Stuff Secret Galaxy Will Cover Before He Even Mentions Jonny Quest”, we have Bionic Six. No shade to the show, but the fact that all my turbo-nerd self knows about it is the title should be a sign. C'MON, man…
I don't know who decided that the art museum needs to advertise with the trappings of a brand trying to channel 90s alt-rock indie band flyers, but I really wanna pick their brain. I don’t DISLIKE it, but I also thought that the OK Soda ads were good, so you really can't go by me.
Saw someone online suggesting that Taika Waititi could make a good JQ movie that would update it without mocking it, and that's probably one of the smarter ideas I've heard on how to do it. Shame most of the animation scene defaults to “lol just watch VB” when you so much as say something that sounds like JQ.
Katelyn, honey, I can’t say it to you directly for a bunch of reasons, but I guarantee you that the complete chromatic estrangement of the aroace flag is 100% intentional & designed to further remove us from either bigger community.
Why is every single mockup flag infinitely better than the one we got? Besides the pick-mes’ influence against our presence, that is.
Also, I just learned that whoever designed the aroace flag couldn't even bullshit a “meaning” for the blue stripes. The yellow & white ones have the usual “community” or “wholeness” & such, but the blues are just “yeah, we ran out of nebulous feel-good terms for these, oh well”.
Nothing sums up how much AI has rotted executives’ collective brains quite like the whole “Disney+ will allow users to make their own AI-generated content” initiative. It’s like they looked at the unceasing fountain of exploitative slop animation on YouTube and instead of hitting the big “summon attorneys” button like in the past, they decided that they’d rather do it themselves. Or in this case, have their customers do it for them. This is gonna go SO poorly for them. Part of me can’t wait to see the train wreck, while another part of me - the part that values & respects art & all who make it - just wants this bullshit bubble to burst already.
I do sorta feel that stuff like Gillian’s Wonderland closing and now this water park is an indicator that the shore has effectively priced itself out of a lot of people’s range, like so many other leisure activities have done. It’s definitely something playing a role in the problems affecting Six Flags (along with the management being doofuses). When people can’t afford to do fun stuff, guess what, they stop doing the fun stuff. And despite what some people think, fun stuff shouldn’t exist solely for upper income brackets.
I don’t really care one way or the other about FNAF, but damn, does that Popeyes tie-in meal look good. I’m sorry, I can’t help it, I’m a sucker for cheese curds.
Horse-girl game update: Nope, I can’t let myself try the new scenario until I finally beat the first one. It won’t feel right till I do it.
Another day, another ex-moot launching themselves full speed head first down the weird gooner slide… Sorry, but I don’t find weight gain fetishes to be about body positivity, cuz the people doing it don’t really see or treat fat people IRL with the same kindness that they do their spank bank entries. Anyway, just gonna mentally bet on how long till they inevitably escalate to gross diaper stuff.
Made the mistake of popping onto the sky site, and seeing a former moot post an extremely mocking & insulting variation of my complaints about one of his most sacred & holy Adult Swim shows is a reminder of why THIS is in my reactions:
In your case, Filbi, I hope you get so wasted that you swallow a slug that has a brain-eating worm in it. Oh, wait, you worship an Adult Swim show & use Reddit fanboys who’d forgive the showrunners for strangling their moms as “proof” that the show & its audience aren’t the scumfucks that they’ve been for the past decade judging from their conduct literally everywhere else. You already HAVE at least a dozen up there.
Man, between the backstabbing shit like THAT and the multiple steady slides into gooner-brain/terrorist apologia/exclusionism/outright insanity, I am starting to feel that pretty much everyone I used to think was decent saw Bluesky as their chance to become their absolute worst selves. I’d rather continue to be lonely & ignored than be associated with a bunch of people who are increasingly disturbing & insulting.
“Write like no one will be reading it!” But… that’s already happening… that’s what I’ve been doing…
Was watching an indie show where Moné was challenging a woman in the promotion (Noor “Phoenix” Diana, who was pretty dang cool) as part of her current story, and I hit on something that would make her whole “belt collector” pay off in a fun way. Imagine if, during a big AEW PPV, Moné not only tries & fails to win their women’s championship, she then turns around towards the ramp, and there are ALL the women from ALL the other promotions whose belts she won, ready to take them all back… it’d be the one time a run-in ending would be okay to me. But it’d probably never happen for a bunch of actually logical reasons.
If you thought that the online animation community was obnoxious about C*yote Versus Acme before (to the point I have to censor to thwart any searching just in case), now that previews/reviews are starting to come in & it’s proving to be just a perfectly cromulent movie instead of the orgasmic cure-all & studio-saver that they believed it was destined to be, they’re gonna be even worse. We’re talking Sn*derverse levels of unhealthy here. Brace yourselves.
Y’know… maybe it’s a good thing Secret Galaxy just kinda ignores the whole H-B Action stable like he’s done (outside of licensed entries). He’s the right age & type to turn them into “yeah, the original sure existed… but then Ad*lt Swim came along and made them into something actually good” like I’ve gotten SO very sick of seeing.
I definitely don't donate blood just for the thank-you gifts, but stuff like cute & warm Pac-Man socks is definitely a nice bonus.
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That about wraps it up for this week. Next week will be a skip week, to allow me some recovery time from Thanksgiving. If you celebrate, I hope you have a good one, and if you don’t I hope you have a nice week.
In parting, please accept this cat picture, one with Parker doing something extremely rare & tolerating his brother sitting on him.
This situation is made worse because his little brother isn’t so little.
